1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus configured to transmit image data to an external apparatus and receive the data from the external apparatus after image processing is performed on the data, an image processing method, and a program for the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a system has been known in which an image processing server that is an information processing apparatus partly or entirely performs image processing on image data obtained by a terminal apparatus such as an image processing apparatus, the image data being transmitted through a network to the image processing server.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-276323 discusses a system in which a host computer, a facsimile, or a scanner, as an image processing request source, transmits image data to an image processing server on a network to request image processing server to perform image processing on the image data. The image processing server then returns the image data processed with the image processing to the host computer or the printer that is the request source.
In another system, an image processing server is selected, among a plurality of image processing servers on a network, according to the type of image processing to be performed, and image data is transmitted to the selected image processing server to be subjected to the image processing. In a further another system, image data is transmitted from a mobile phone equipped with a camera function to an image processing server which provides image processing service on the image data.
In recent years, the system where specific information processing is performed on input information data via a network has been widely spread as cloud computing. In the cloud computing, image processing can be performed as desired through a request from a terminal apparatus for specific image processing to an image processing server, even if the terminal apparatus does not have a function to perform the image processing. The system enables reduction in cost of the terminal apparatus, while establishing an environment providing an additional value of high functionality.
Meanwhile, the above-described system where image data is transmitted to an image processing server via a network to receive image processing there involves issues of a period of time and a load onto the network required for the transmission of the image data.
In the case where image data is to be printed, the data size is generally large. For example, the image data obtained by scanning an A4-size document at 600 dpi has a data size of about 90 Mb. Accordingly, transmission of image data from a terminal apparatus to an image processing server takes a certain period of time even if a high-speed network is used. In addition, when image data is transmitted from a plurality of terminal apparatuses to image processing servers, a larger load is applied to the network, substantially leading to a lower transmission speed and a longer period of time required for the image data transmission.
To address the issue of image data size, conventionally, target image data is compressed and its resolution is lowered before transmission. The compression of an image, however, is known to be based on the trade-off between the quality and the data size of the image. Thus, reduction of the image data size is almost certainly accompanied by deterioration of image quality after compression.
Advanced techniques can be used for the compression, but to prevent increase in the period of time for compression, a terminal apparatus as a request source of the compression is also required to have a special hardware module corresponding to the compression techniques. The special hardware module imposes a large increase in cost of the terminal apparatus that is set to request an image processing server to perform specific image processing.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-276323 discusses transmission of image data by dividing the data into areas, but does not refer to the size of the image data.